Ann... Thanks for update. Interesting to see "swarming" applied to a bit larger platforms.

I could see these being used for wide area search and rescue! A problem out here in the "west" ... elderly wandering off in the desert. Too big of area for most Civil Aviation authorities to work with their resources (my county is over 8,000 sq miles with approx 26 people per sq mile avg) .. dang, it's getting crowded around here.

Thanks, Chuck. I've been amazed at so many of the just plain far-out advancements in robotics, but I think that some of the swarming technology is truly mind-boggling. So are some of the biomimicry breakthroughs in robotics--just wait til you see some of my upcoming posts, like today's about rat heart muscles and jellyfish:http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=250357

Laws are only good for those that follow them. They do absolutely nothing for those that do not care they are breaking a law.

Swarming UAVs makes me think we need a defense against them sooner rather than later. How would one stop a swarm? We might see history come full circle, with barrage balloons over our cities like London 1940.

Lou, I often think about the same thing when writing about flying robots and UAVs--more stuff in the sky. But mostly, I'm intrigued by the technology and what it can do. Besides, there are now a ton of laws (it seems) governing their use, as Thinking_J lists in his comment to the flying robots slideshow here
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=249645

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